War

The young rays of the morning sun danced on the young faces of his comrades. It was a beautiful winter morning in that part of the world where winter is welcome and summer is dreaded. None of them noticed the beauty of the weather around them. They did not have the time or the disposition to pay any attention to the cool, fresh dew drops that made the sun’s rays dance in merriment.

They had more pressing matters at hand.

He could see a row of black heads in front of him. He had lined up with his comrades on the battlefield, ready to face the enemy. There were fellow soldiers ahead of him and behind him. Yes, they were brave, he thought. They were dedicated, too. None of that really mattered in this war. This war was not about a fair fight, and they had come to realize that over the years of incessant violence. They knew now, that it was written in their fate to stand in the battlefield every day, and look in the eye of their end.

Some wars are fought over countries. Many have been fought over women. But sometimes, wars are fought for so long that war and life become synonymous. Soldiers are born into the battlefield, with swords and spears as their teethers. They never see what life without this violence and bloodshed could be. He too, had been born into this war like all his fellow soldiers.

He had never understood war. He had never understood why he stepped into this arena every day, poised with his weapons, ready to take the blows that the mighty, undeniably undefeatable enemy flung at him and return a few of his own. He had not understood for so long that he had forgotten that he had the choice to try and understand. He had now gotten used to living a life where he had to fend for his life every minute of the day, looking over his shoulder, fighting the enemy, his ears ringing at all times with the war cries. The human mind, anyhow, is still a dark, mysterious abyss. Nothing is lost by that abyss and so, even though he had forgotten his questions, they were still there; haunting him in the back of his mind like ghosts that one cannot see but can only feel.

And then, he heard it. The enemy’s war cry. It rung through his head as if the enemy was inside his brain. All of a sudden, his mind became empty. All that was left was the reverberating war cry. Every tendon and muscle in his body tightened. He gripped his spear, clenched his fist and looked straight ahead, waiting for the enemy to appear. He glanced at his comrades ahead of him, who would face the enemy, fighting it before it reached him. If they gave a good fight, they would weaken it before it reached him but if they failed, the enemy would be stronger in will and hence in power. He had seen the wrath of the enemy when it was strong and he knew he could not take it more than once. He closed his eyes and prayed unto his gods to give his brothers in arms the power that they needed to face their fate.

When he opened his eyes, the enemy had already appeared. The moment he laid his eyes on the adversary, he realized something was wrong. He looked at his clenched fist. His mind was in overdrive with the adrenaline rushing through him. He had to calm himself down to be able to think. Something was definitely wrong. His mind kept telling him to look at his clenched fist. He looked at his left hand,
the fist, and he opened his fist to look at his palm. It was empty. It dawned upon him at that moment. His fist was not supposed to be clenched around empty air. That was what was wrong – his fist should be holding the handle of his trusted shield; the strong, sturdy shield that had waylaid so many of the blows that would have otherwise blown him to smithereens.

Beads of sweat dotted his brow until there were so many of them that a few came together to form a drop trickling down his temples. He felt his knees weaken and more alarmingly, he felt his will weaken. In a war such as this, more than anything else, what one needs are nerves of steel. Without the strong determination, a soldier is nothing but an empty armour.

He turned to the fellow next to him and said, “I am not prepared.”
His fellow soldier could not believe what he just heard. “What do you mean? You are going to make us all suffer! How could you not have thought of this before?”

He had expected help, words of support and strength. This did not help. He turned back to face the enemy who had now advanced into the troops, fighting, killing and taking blows. The enemy seemed a little weakened because the troops were well prepared and brave today. It did not matter. No amount of loss of strength would make it easy enough for him to escape his fate this time. He was done for and he knew it.

As he confronted this reality, the moment of truth arrived. The enemy stood next to him, looming large against the morning sun, blocking out rays as if the sun was the source of hope. Its eyes exuded careless power and merciless cruelty. Its breath reeked of hunger for flesh. Its voice sounded like a thousand thunders lighting up the sky at once, as if to split it into pieces. With just his spear and nothing to shield himself with, he was no match for it. It was not going to take long for it to destroy him, but in that one small moment, it was going to be a massacre.

“Are you prepared?” Its voice growled as if there were the lost souls of hundreds of tyrants trapped inside it.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Teacher! I’m really sorry.. I.. I forgot my workbook! I’d done the homework, honest, but I just forgot to put the book back into my bag! Please.. I’ll show it tomorrow!”

There was a collective gasp in the classroom as the other kids all turned to look at him. The horror on their face was frank, unmasked and honest. They shivered for his sake and for their own sake. His eyes shifted from their faces – faces filled with fear, with pity, and in some cases (may their souls rot in hell) with glee, and rested upon the teacher’s hand. The fingers of his teacher’s right palm were tightening their grip around the wooden ruler – an ironic name for that instrument, he had always thought.

He let go of the pencil he had been gripping uselessly all this time and extended his white, damp, bloodless palm for the teacher to hold. As the ruler rose high in the air, he closed his eyes tightly and thought of home – of his mother, of the warm breakfast, of the cartoons on the TV, and of everything that was delightful. He knew it – he was done for.